CalItalian wrote:Not a chance in West Los Angeles ... There are NO Whole Foods stores in West Los Angeles that are larger than a Ralphs store. NONE.

Opposite example: Venice. The Whole Foods does way more business than the Ralphs down the street.

The Ralphs was once a Boys Market (Market Basket under that company), the Whole Foods once a Safeway (Ralphs isn't even a Fresh Fare unlike the two just south in Marina del Rey). I don't think much of either of those locations considering the wealth of Venice itself.Whole Foods has just over 3% of the market in Southern California and Las Vegas. Ralphs/Food 4 Less nearly 5 times as much.The only Whole Foods locations built from the ground up in West Los Angeles are Beverly Hills adjacent, Playa Vista and Santa Monica. Santa Monica locations aren't large because of land constraints. Two former Westward Ho locations that are now Whole Foods, Brentwood and West Los Angeles, are especially small.

The funny thing about the Whole Foods in Venice is the former Sav-on next door is a 99 Cents Only! store and the former Kinney Shoes store in the same center is a CVS. Just an odd shopping center.

Personally, I'm kind of tired of all these silly speculative articles. I read one last week where someone suggested Walmart should buy out Costco I mean, nowadays all bets are off when it comes to mergers, but I don't see this happening in a million years.

In some ways, it makes sense. But it would be interesting in how branding would be handled in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska. It would be foolish to get rid of the Fred Meyer name here. Perhaps co-branded ads? Also, Fred Meyer is the general merchandise buying arm for Kroger and do a good job or that. I know that most Target stores are not Super Targets but I know that in the past, Fred Meyer had quite a few stores without a full line grocery. I also can't see the Target and CVS relationship continuing since Kroger is big on its on pharmacies. Unless Kroger bought Target and CVS! But this is all just speculation!

I couldn't see it happening, mostly because it would require a ton of divestitures (especially in the Pacific Northwest) and there's basically nobody to divest the stores to (who in their right mind would want to give Walmart MORE stores?) unless they wanted to do something insane like turn them all into ShopKos.

Totally different cultures and ways of going to market, Target and Kroger would not be a good match at all.

I think in general these big mergers need to stop. The only good thing is there are always new little nimble competitors that keep emerging to help keep retail interesting and help keep a decent mix of stores around.

This is just speculation at this point, but Kroger's stock price jumped today following rumors that the company could be acquired by Ahold Delhaize. Although such a merger would be a disaster operationally (Kroger decentralized operations likely would not mesh well with the one size fits all model of Ahold), at least the combined company would have almost complete nationwide coverage and be able to achieve cost synergies from larger buying power. With Kroger's stock price in an extended slump, it will be interesting to see if another buyer could emerge even if this potential Ahold deal falls through.

I think something has to give with Kroger. They did too well for too long and the stock market got a little too spoiled with unrealistic expectations.

The company has missed many opportunities to grow its store base on the west coast, either organically or through other means, that have come up over the past few years.

Now this past year they cut new store builds and cut or delayed remodels so they could invest in "digital initiatives."

Operationally I still think Kroger is great, my favorite store to do a full shop, but strategically they seem to be in a mess and rather confused. I believe they are allowing market share to slide away long term by not developing more stores.

I have never been impressed by anything I've seen from Ahold or Delhaize. Hannaford was the closest thing to being "impressive." Giant-PA was also pretty good, but lacking in some ways. Giant-MD, terrible operation, but obviously very high volume operations so they must do something right. Food Lion, again... probably should not even still be open.

I think something has to give with Kroger. They did too well for too long and the stock market got a little too spoiled with unrealistic expectations.

The company has missed many opportunities to grow its store base on the west coast, either organically or through other means, that have come up over the past few years.

Now this past year they cut new store builds and cut or delayed remodels so they could invest in "digital initiatives."

Operationally I still think Kroger is great, my favorite store to do a full shop, but strategically they seem to be in a mess and rather confused. I believe they are allowing market share to slide away long term by not developing more stores.

I have never been impressed by anything I've seen from Ahold or Delhaize. Hannaford was the closest thing to being "impressive." Giant-PA was also pretty good, but lacking in some ways. Giant-MD, terrible operation, but obviously very high volume operations so they must do something right. Food Lion, again... probably should not even still be open.

Giant-MD is the DC area equivalent to Safeway in the Bay Area. Terrible operation, but way too many barriers to entry to many of their store locations. Yes, DC has a lot more competition in the outlying areas (with Wegmans, Harris Teeter, etc. making an entry in the past few years). However, Giant-MD's best stores have little competition (other than maybe Safeway).

Kroger tends to not like opening stores in areas where there are high barriers to entry / high costs. They exited the Bay Area multiple times (except for FoodsCo) and they're stagnant in the Pacific NW and Southern California (having closed several stores and not simply retreating to the high performers.

They also threatened to pull out of the Detroit area (which at the time had very strong unions). Hannaford / Stop & Shop / Giant - MD would not fit Kroger very well at all (you'd see it becoming like Ralph's and QFC with no store openings and closures year after year).

If Albertsons was going to be sold in pieces before the Roundy's purchase I thought Kroger should've purchased Jewel - Osco. Chicagoland isn't as high cost as other markets and they'd own the dominant chain (adjacant to their very large operations in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, southern Illinois, etc.